Timely reminder

Very recently I spotted a press release from CEFAS (the Governments fisheries research wing) about a new tagging program that has been initiated in a effort to better understand sea bass populations. You may have spotted that I posted their flier on my Facebook page and if you haven't already done so you can check that out here.

Blessed with or should I more properly say; trained with all the relevant skills to undertake fish tagging I once seriously considered doing some small scale tagging aboard 3 Fishes. It is easy enough to import Floy Tags (a firm in Australia supplies them through an online portal) and Floy Tags are easy enough to use on bass. Their signature dorsal fin provides the perfect base in which to lodge the T of the tag. If you have never seen one close up they are very like the annoying bits of plastic that clothing retailers seem intent on using to add pricing labels to garments. And better still bass are very obliging when it comes to the tagging process as, if you lie them upside down (on their backs), they will become motionless as if in a trance. Other fish do this too but bass are particularly receptive to being still on their backs. So there is no need for anaesthetic which is good news as in order to use some a whole tranche of bureaucratic hoops must be jumped through.

So getting the tags is easy and not very costly, doing the tagging is easy and getting the bass is not all that difficult either - lets face it I make a living taking people fishing for them so if I haven't got a ready supply of the things then I have no business.

Why in hell have I not done it then? Well for two prime reasons. Firstly although bass tagging is easy it does demand attention if it is to be done well and without harm to the fish. I have a myriad of other things demanding my attention at the moment a bass comes aboard, primarily 3 Fishes and take you mind off her for a few seconds and you are asking for trouble. And secondly, just imagine for a moment getting a customer a nice six pounder, tagging it and releasing it (all fish over 55cm are released aboard 3 Fishes anyway). Job done you might think. True it is until a few days later when someone hands me the very same tag pulled out of the very same fish that they had caught and killed. Now that is going to hurt.

Call me overly emotional but I want to believe that the fish I release head off to survive, thrive and recreate. I certainly don't want to know that someone killed it.